


Clinging to Not Getting Sentimental

by calendarpages



Series: A Life in Love [2]
Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, Future Fic, M/M, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-25
Updated: 2012-06-25
Packaged: 2017-11-08 12:44:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/443329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calendarpages/pseuds/calendarpages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she and Brittany broke up, Santana Lopez lost her faith in high school sweethearts. Now, living happily with her long-time partner, Santana receives a reminder that it's not so much when you find your true love that matters, but that you find them in the end.<br/>The second story in the Life in Love series. You should read the first, Everybody's Changing And I Don't Feel the Same, before this one to fully understand some of the references.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clinging to Not Getting Sentimental

Santana got hers when she checked the mail on her way home from work one evening. The envelope was larger than any of the other standard sized ones she’d received, all bills probably, and she regarded it with mild curiosity as she climbed the single flight of stairs up to her apartment. Toeing off her heels in the entrance hall and kicking them to the side, she tossed the rest of the mail onto a side table and rooted around in her purse for a nail file. She was just about to slice open the envelope when a voice interrupted her and she jumped, dropping the nail file and swearing when it hit her foot point down.

“Tana, is that you?”

Santana gave a long suffering sigh and retrieved the nail file, sticking it into the waistband of her tight skirt and making her way down the hallway towards the voice.

“No, Kara, it’s my evil alter-ego Snicks,” she drawled as she came to lean in the doorframe leading to the kitchen where Kara was puttering about, tossing various ingredients into an ominous looking black pot on the stove. 

Kara snorted as she dumped some white liquid into the pot with a flourish, “You’re awful.”

“Not awful in bed sweetheart, if the way you were moaning last night was any-” 

“Alright! You give excellent head, but I’m in this relationship for more than just the oral sex.”

Santana sidled up behind her girlfriend, wrapping her arms around her waist and tucking her chin into the juncture between her neck and her shoulder. “Mm, for my tits too. I have awesome tits.”

Kara rolled her eyes, “Yes, your tits are great too. You’re just fishing for compliments, aren’t you?”

“And bringin’ em’ in by the boatload,” mumbled Santana into Kara’s shirt.

Kara’s face softened. “I love you Santana, you know that right?”

“Love you too, Kara Kat.”

Kara went boneless in her arms as Santana began to mouth gently at the sensitive spot just behind her ear, “Mmm-ah, Tana, _oh god that feels-_ Ah! Santana! You’re going to make me over season the soup.”

Santana didn’t listen, simply moving one of her hands so that it strokes with aching precision at the inside of Kara’s thigh, walking her fingers up to her belly button and then dancing her way back down again. 

“Enough of that!” gasped Kara as Santana began working at her belt. “You brought in a letter! A letter that we should read-”

Santana rolled her eyes, but produced the letter in question without protest from where she’d tucked it in the back pocket of her skirt. Kara snatched the envelope and examined it closely, sniffing the paper and raising an inquisitive eyebrow.

“This letter smells really good,” she remarked, shoving the offending object under Santana’s nose. “Catch a whiff of that.”

Santana sniffed tentatively, her eyes narrowing. “I know that smell.”

Kara flashed her girlfriend a smirk.

“What? The haunting aroma of an ex-lover’s perfume?” she crooned with a waggle of her eyebrows. “Bringing back some erotic memories?” she added, rolling the r in erotic and biting her bottom lip to hide a smile. 

“Oh don’t you wish,” quipped Santana, crowding into her girlfriend’s space and bracketing her up against a counter. “I know you’ve been vying for a threesome.” 

Kara smacked Santana playfully with the letter and twisted out from between her arms. “In your dreams sister,” she muttered, her voice turning serious. “Now really, where do recognize the smell from?”

“I’m pretty damn sure that letter is drenched in men’s cologne,” replied Santana with a cheeky grin.

Kara snorted out a laugh, “You’re kidding?”

“Not a chance!” Santana inspected the letter again. “You know what? There was a kid that I knew in high school who used to wear this cologne.” She looked up with a devilish glint in her eye. “I bet your ass it’s from him.”

“Who would think it was a good idea to spray cologne on their mail?” asked Kara with a disbelieving chuckle. 

Santana slit open the envelope with the nail file that she’d retrieved from her skirt. “Kurt Hummel, that’s who.”

Santana pulled an elegant card of some sort from the envelope and scanned it briefly, her eyes growing wider as she read the printed words. Kara wanted to grab the letter, card, invitation, whatever it was- from Santana to see for herself what had unnerved her girlfriend so much, but she refrained, knowing when to hold herself back for Santana’s sake. 

When Santana made no move to offer an explanation, Kara grasped at straws. “Who’s Kurt Hummel?”

Santana’s face turned wistful and Kara frowned slightly. Santana was not a nostalgic person by nature and Kara had come to associate nostalgia only with lingering memories of a high school sweetheart who had left Santana years ago. Kara wasn’t jealous, per say, but that doesn’t stop her from hating the mysterious Brittany that she only knows through half-whispered stories told when Santana is feeling vulnerable. 

Santana knew Brittany when she was just coming in to herself- still filling out and growing up, so very _incomplete_ in a multitude of ways. From what Kara had gathered, Brittany hadn’t understood what it meant to love with all of one’s being and that is the excuse that Santana made for her when Kara asked why Brittany had left so abruptly. Santana thinks that this absolves Brittany somehow but Kara maintains that it just makes it worse. Brittany never understood love, and yet she allowed Santana to give herself over so completely. Allowed Santana to fall in love under the impression that Brittany would catch her, when she really never could. 

“Santana, my love, what is it?” Kara only called Santana “my love” when she was worried and Santana seemed to have caught on because she met Kara’s gaze and held it steadily. 

“It’s nothing, mi vida,” she murmured gently. “Just a shock.”

“A bad shock? Or a good shock?”

A warm smile spread across Santana’s face until she was full on beaming, “A fantastic shock.”

Santana hands the card over to Kara and she reads it quickly:

_Mr. Kurt Elizabeth Hummel  
_ _and  
_ _Mr. Blaine Maxwell Anderson  
_ _request the honor of your presence  
_ _at their marriage  
_ _on Saturday, the fifteenth of December  
_ _at four o'clock in the afternoon  
_ _at The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco  
_ _followed by a reception  
_ _black-tie formal attire, s'il vous plaît_

____

“I have feeling that this should be significant to me somehow,” commented Kara. “I believe an explanation is in order.”

Santana sighed, “Can we do this after dinner?”

“Of course.”

Dinner was lovely, soup and salad, and they carefully avoided the subject of the mysterious wedding invitation. They restrained themselves to comfortably mundane topics; shoes, for example. Santana rambled on about the merits of heels from a self defense stand point while Kara listened intently and then came out with a straight advocacy for bare-footedness. When the hustle and bustle surrounding the meal had passed, Kara yanked Santana into the living room and pushed her down onto the couch, straddling her thighs and staring her down with a rare intensity. 

“We’re going to talk about this,” she breathed, sitting back on her haunches, still perched above Santana’s lap.

Santana nodded, “We are.”

And so they did. Santana painted a picture of her high school days, introducing Kara to the New Directions and describing them in that biting way that always had Kara in stitches. She also told her what she knew about Kurt and Blaine’s relationship, although Kara doubted that Santana’s retelling was entirely unbiased.

“The amount of concentrated gay between the two of them was just ridiculous,” Santana chortled between sips of wine. “Blaine was like the power bottom of every bear’s dreams and he managed to end up with Kurt, aka Mr. Twinktastic. I cry honest tears for all of the gay men out there deprived of Blaine’s ass. I mean, even by my standards it’s a masterpiece.”

And so the regaling continued until Santana had sobbed her way through her breakup with Brittany and they were both thoroughly drunk from the wine that Kara had brought out half-way through.

“And I jus- don’t get it, cus Kurt’s an ice queen s’metimes, an-and I’m a bitch sometimes, but Kurt got his Blaine and I didn’t get my Britt-Britt, where’s da-the fair in that?” slurred Santana as she rested her head on Kara’s shoulder, blinking up at her forlornly. 

“I dunno, Tana,” mused Kara, stroking through Santana’s hair. “Maybe Brittany wasn’t your Blaine?” 

Santana hiccuped, “That’s fucking wise for someone who’s drunk.”

Kara nodded. 

At some point during the evening they managed to stumble their way into bed and Kara woke up the next morning with a splitting headache and the taste of something dead in her mouth. She flopped over in bed, throwing her arm over the spot where Santana should’ve been sleeping and finding it empty. The sound of Santana’s voice echoed from somewhere in the apartment and Kara tottered out of the bedroom in search of her girlfriend, stopping in the bathroom on the way to gulp down a couple of much needed aspirin and to gargle some mouthwash. 

“..and she’s just everything, Kurt. She’s made an honest woman out of me.”

Kara found Santana curled into their overstuffed sofa, a large mug of coffee cupped in her hands and the phone tucked between her ear and her shoulder. Santana’s eyes rose when she heard Kara enter the living room and she offered her a breathtaking smile and mouthed, “Good morning, hot stuff.”

Kara chuckled and settled down beside her girlfriend, twining their fingers together.

“Hey Kurt, Kara’s up if you want to meet her.”

Kara accepted the phone warily, shooting Santana a nervous glance and hoping that she would understand. From their conversation the night before, Kara had garnered that this man was important to Santana and she found herself craving approval in the same way that she’d craved it from Santana’s parents. Santana patted her knee reassuringly and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead as she got up to refill her mug.

“Hello?”

“Kara?” The voice was high, but still clearly masculine. It sounded exotic wrapped around her name.

“Um, hi. Kurt, is it?”

“And Blaine!” came another, deeper voice, imbued with the same enthusiasm that Kara would expect of a puppy presented with the possibility of a walk.  

“Yes, and Blaine,” said the first voice wryly and Kara let out a startled laugh. 

“We got your wedding invitation last night,” said Kara dumbly and now it was Kurt’s turn to laugh. 

“Did you like the scented paper?” chirped the second voice, Blaine presumably. 

“It was a nice touch,” said Kara tentatively, hoping not to step on any toes. 

Blaine whooped loudly and Kurt immediately shushed him with a, “Blaine, dear, you’re going to scare her away.”

“Sorry,” added Blaine, sounding chastised. “It’s just that the scented paper was my idea and Kurt’s been making fun of me for it.”

“And it was a very good idea, love,” cooed Kurt and Kara could make out what must’ve been the characteristic smack of a quick peck on the lips. 

“You two are adorable,” Kara blurted out before she could stop herself. Their banter was disgustingly cute, as Santana had so aptly described it, and Kara wasn’t good at maintaining a filter around people she liked. 

“We get that a lot,” said Kurt amicably. “But enough about us, word on the street is that you and Santana are pretty adorable too? Mhm?”

Kara blushed, “Yea, we have our moments.”

“Santana? Adorable? What has this world come to?” intoned Blaine with a gasp.

“Don’t be melodramatic, it’s not attractive,” snapped Kurt playfully and Kara could almost picture Blaine’s responding swoon. 

“You wound me,” Blaine deadpanned, before returning his attentions to Kara. “But anyway, it’d mean a lot to us if you could make it to the wedding with Santana. She’s said that she’d come, but that she had to talk to you before setting anything in stone.”

“Of course! I’d love to come to your little shindig,” replied Kara honestly. “It’s sure to be quite a party.”

“Nothing less for the wedding of Kurt Hummel,” sniffed Kurt. “I’ve been planning this since I was three.”

“Ah, I think we’ve got a groom-zilla on our hands.”

Kurt muttered something unintelligible, passing off the phone and Blaine chuckled warmly, “He’s not too bad. I just figure that I’m only going to have one wedding, so we might as well pull out all the stops, you know?”

Kara smiled at that. “Yea, I get it.”

“So we can count on you in December, yes?” asked Kurt hopefully.

Blaine chimed in with a, “I’ll have you know, I’m crossing both my fingers _and_ toes right now.”

“Definitely,” said Kara. “But only because Blaine crossed his toes.”

Blaine laughed triumphantly and Kara pressed the phone to her shoulder so that she could speak to Santana, who had only just then returned from a suspiciously long trip to the kitchen. “Do you want to talk to them again?” 

“Nah, it’s fine, we had our lady chat before you decided to make an appearance,” she replied, smirking. “Tell them, ‘Use protection,’ from Autie Tana, before you hang up, though.”

Kara chucked a couch pillow in Santana’s direction before returning the phone to her ear. 

“Don’t worry, we heard the whole thing,” said Kurt as she opened her mouth to deliver Santana’s greeting. “Tell her that she can stop worrying because we only bareback when I bottom.”

Kara paused, “There’s nothing much to say after that, is there?”

“Not at all.”

“It was a pleasure chatting with you,” said Blaine, ever polite. 

“I can say same of you two,” agreed Kara. “I’ll see you at the wedding, yea?”

“I wish I could say, ‘I’ll be the one in white” but unfortunately, both of our suits are a tasteful charcoal,” said Kurt, his tone light.

“Witty, I like it,” mused Kara, earning her a giggle- probably from Blaine.

“Talk to you soon.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

Kara hung up the phone with her lips still curved into a fond smile. Santana reappeared yet again, this time with a tray of breakfast- fruit salad that they could feed each other in an increasingly suggestive manner until they ended up making on the couch like teenagers. 

“Somebody wants to get lucky,” remarked Kara and Santana just smiled, leaning down to set the tray on the floor.

When Santana finally kissed her, after slogging through more than half a bowl of obnoxiously succulent fruit, Kara tasted like strawberries and coffee. As they tangled together on the living room floor, Santana thought to herself that maybe she had found her Blaine after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second in a series of stories, called the Life in Love series, that I hope to write surrounding the future of the New Directions; together and apart. The title is derived from the Arctic Monkeys' insanely catchy song, Fluorescent Adolescent because I like the song and because I think Santana would cling to not being sentimental.


End file.
